Major Johnny Austin, British Army, deployed for a second time to Iraq in October 2005 for a nine-month tour with his unit - 1st Battalion, Royal Regiment of Fusiliers - serving as the battalion operations officer. Normally part of 7 Armoured Brigade, the fusiliers became the 1 UK Armoured Division's reserve for this entire tour. Extensive training across all levels was part of Austin's battalion's pre-mission preparation as well as a thorough reintroduction to counterinsurgency tactics, techniques and procedures. In addition, his battalion commander emphasized battle group strike - cordon and search - and military transition team (MiTT) activities, both of which would prove useful. The fusiliers again deployed their own equipment, though now fully digitized, through Kuwait and relieved a sister armored infantry battle group from British forces normally stationed in Germany. Located at the Shaibah Logistics Base south of Basra, Austin's battalion conducted aggressive patrolling to help ensure local security. Conditions were austere with soldiers living in tents but subsisting with their own mess chefs providing morale-enhancing food. Other British Army and coalition units - including Australians, Italians and Danes - often conducted ground-holding operations whereas the fusiliers executed strike operations. British Army doctrine and contemporary law treats terrorism as a crime rather than war. Much of the professional British Army has intimate knowledge of the relevant law and resulting rules of engagement from their tours in Northern Ireland. Austin observed, though, that soldiers are not policemen and that such operations are not without challenges. Basra was much in the sway of various Iran-influenced militias by the return of the fusiliers in 2005 necessitating both suppression of the militias and the training of Iraqi security forces. Austin, having worked with US forces in Iraq and now attending the Command and General Staff College, felt that though it paid a sanguine cost for the knowledge, the US Army developed and applied well the lessons of counterinsurgency found in FM 3-24. He contrasted the generalist approach of the British Army with the specialization of US Army officers and their reliance on PowerPoint.

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